Sophomore defender Gabriel Rivera helped the Cerritos College men’s soccer team complete their second half heroics with a header with 12 minutes remaining to boost the Falcons to a 3-2 victory over conference rival Los Angeles Harbor College on Tuesday, Sept. 25.

Hosting Seahawks of Los Angeles Harbor College, the Falcons got off to an incredibly slow start, succumbing to a penalty kick within the first 15 minutes to trail 1-0.

The Falcons continued to prove their mental strength, however, fighting right back to earn a free kick less than five minutes later, which would culminate in freshman Jose Rivera completing a header to tie the game at 1-1.

The Cerritos first half effort continued to dwindle, as just before the halftime break, the Seahawks once again found their way to taking the lead, scoring off a free kick by Eric Medina, who also accounted for the visitors’ first goal of the match.

Head coach Benny Artiaga had strong words for his men during the break, and their impact was proven as soon as the Falcons took the field once again for the second batch of 45 minutes, as the speed of play, and ball movement automatically shifted in Cerritos College’s favor.

“In the first half, I was not happy with my team at all, and I sure let them know about it,” Artiaga said.

“…in the first five minutes we had three mental breakdowns, and then we were playing catch up… I told my team that we [the Falcons] keep making these young, innocent mistakes, and that can’t happen.”

The young, innocent mistakes had been completely diminished, and the second half was filled with multiple chances on target from the Falcon’s offense.

The Falcons team were finally awarded for their improvements in the 66th minute, when sophomore midfielder Gerardo Soto’s corner kick was not successfully handled by the Seahawks goalkeeper.

Cerritos sophomore Dominic Escobar was in the right place at the right time, capitalizing on the goalie’s mishap to head the ball in for the game-tying goal.

Despite the fact that Los Angeles Harbor tried making adjustments to better handle the revamped Falcon’s offense, and eventually had some of their own towards the final 15 minutes of play, the Cerritos College team continued to dominate the latter portion of the game.

Everything finally fell into place in the 78th minute with the help of Rivera’s header off of freshman Mario Guerrero’s set piece, and the Falcons had completed a stellar comeback to win their first match of South Coast Conference play.

“We came out slow [in the first half], and could have approached the game better, and more focused,” Rivera explained.

“Coach went over some things at the half that we had to fix, and we went out there and we fixed it.”

Escobar feels the Falcon’s tenacity on offense was the key effort that separated them from L.A. Harbor, stating that “we put more players in the box when we did shoot, and luckily we were able to get the rebounds, and put them in.”

Next game, however, both players agreed on one key improvement they needed to make.

“We need to start off the next game the way we started off the second half today,” Escobar said, with Rivera adding, “in every position we need to step it up.”

The Falcons look to showcase their improvements on Friday, September 28, as they host ECC Compton Center at Cerritos College.